Re: TECH: more help?

On 6/23/06, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
> I usually combine those two steps into one: "pdflatex blabla" (if the
> file is blabla.tex). Goes straight to PDF.
True, I hadn't noticed that MikTeX comes with pdfLaTeX bundled.  That
simplifies things.  pdfLaTeX is actually a separate macro package from
LaTeX, but the MikTeX distribution has them all sharing common files
so you don't need two copies of things or need to worry about them
getting out of sync.

> > Unfortunately, the default font is, as mentioned, fugly.
> *nods*
You can convince pdfLaTeX to use any TTF font, but it doesn't know
about your system's font folder, and it requires that you create
several extra files to teach the LaTeX parts of the system about the
font.  It's quite a pain, really.  I'm surprised no one is
distributing an automated  "tell LaTeX about all my system fonts"
program.

> Also easily fixable in principle -- but I don't know how well
> alternative fonts play with things such as mathematics mode or IPA.
The key is that TTF fonts use Unicode; one of the things you have to
set up when enabling LaTeX to use your TTF fonts is a Unicode mapping.

> I think that was on purpose, on the principle that the maximum number
> of characters on a line for easy reading shouldn't be more than "x",
Yes, it was on purpose.  That doesn't make it any less wasteful or
stupid-looking. :)

> Heh, I suppose it depends on what your standards for "attractive" are
> -- I presume the wider margins are there because Dr. Knuth found them
> more attractive than the alternative :)
Leslie Lamport, actually.  They're a feature of LaTeX, not TeX.

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

Replies